CSM Lacks Combat Badge

[MCGYVER]

I agree that it was more about making a statement by putting a female in the position than anything else. I just simply cannot believe that they couldn't find another black female E-9 that HAS a combat patch (even for just chillin in Kuwait or Kandahar) to put in the position. Wow!

[CrimLaw]

Trust me, there are a lot of people who are 'camping out' at Jackson. One guy that recently PCSed (to KOREA, I might add) was at Jackson for 10 YEARS. CSM King is just another person who knew the right people. I really cannot comprehend how people just skate by and not do their deployment time. My heart goes out to those people that are on their 4th, 5th, 6th tours.

[SailorDave]

Originally Posted by smarg

**YAY, CLAP CLAP CLAP**

Most of the CSMs in the Army are slimy careerists enjoying their perks granted unto them as enlisted 'generals'...staff cars, butt boys, secretaries. They want to make me vomit.

Thank you for your honest input.

Do you get your writing style from militarycorruption.com ??

[RONALD45]

Originally Posted by Creaminess

I'm overseas, so I always get my Army Times a week or so behind the states, but I'm expecting to see somebody blast the NCO who wrote the letter originally for speaking his mind. I'm sure it will be something to the effect that we shouldn't "undermine" our leaders or the usual gibberish.

Seems our "leaders" are doing quite the swell job of "undermining" themselves as of late

[Creaminess]

Originally Posted by RONALD45

Seems our "leaders" are doing quite the swell job of "undermining" themselves as of late

You're definitely right about that.

I would love to see CSM King herself respond to that original letter that was written about her. I'm sure it's "beneath" her or "not worth the time" to respond, so I don't expect that anything is forthcoming from her. I don't know her, nor have I ever worked with her, so people defending her will ask what gives me the right to comment on her fitness for that job. To that, I would reply that nobody I've seen has questioned whether she is qualified to serve as the commandant of the drill sergeant school. What we're questioning is how she's served nearly three decades in the Army without a single deployment ANYWHERE.

And the answer? She's working the system. She knows people who have gotten her where she is today and who have helped her dodge deployments. I get sick of seeing people climb up the ranks without pulling their weight, and I put her into that category.

[RONALD45]

But then again when you have a President who has never served, a Secretary of the Army who has never served and 400 + members of Congress who have never served ALL leading the whole Army does one CSM who has never served in combat training troops pale in significance

[Creaminess]

Originally Posted by RONALD45

But then again when you have a President who has never served, a Secretary of the Army who has never served and 400 + members of Congress who have never served ALL leading the whole Army does one CSM who has never served in combat training troops pale in significance

You're absolutely right. And everytime I get asked why I didn't vote for Obama, because I'm white, immediately the first thing African-Americans assume is that it's because of his race. It's not...it's because he's my Commander-in-Chief but has never served. As a career Soldier, it's important to me that my CinC has at least SOME kind of military background. True, Bush Jr. being in the Air National Guard in Alabama or wherever was a joke, but at least he had some familiarity with the military. Plus, as a former governor, the Texas ARNG belonged to him, so he'd had that exposure too. Obama was never governor and never served, so he had no experience in the military or directly involving them. Most people I tell this to who have never served don't understand my point of view, but that's my reasoning.

And building on your point above, isn't it amazing how Congress and the President have to approve our pay raises every year, yet we don't get a vote in THEIR pay raises?

[SSGArtillery]

lets not get away from the point here, i can live with a president and congress that never served, it doesn't affect me one bit, what does affect me is the quality of soldiers coming into the ranks and who is training them before they get here. I can live with the fact that a female is in charge, because ive met some great combat proven females since ive been in. BUT! when you are clearly no where near experienced with what you are supposed to be training the soldiers then you are just wasting a position. There is a difference, the NCO thats heard about the war but cant provide honest feed back to WHY we do certain training and can only reference an experience she had in an FTX and her worst day was having to pull 24 hours in the rain in the field and an NCO that has lived the experience, can relate the combat training soldiers have been conducting to actual experiences in combat and had a bad day when she had to tell the parents of a young soldier that they lost their child serving their country at a young age and many paygrades below her and they served the Army honorably, That is the difference. I want to follow a career path too, but I also understand that I would be doing a disservice to the Army and fellow soldiers to say "screw everyone else, im gonna worry about me me me and dodge the war and service to my country to get to where I want to be"...
Thats my complaint!

[Creaminess]

Originally Posted by SSGArtillery

lets not get away from the point here, i can live with a president and congress that never served, it doesn't affect me one bit, what does affect me is the quality of soldiers coming into the ranks and who is training them before they get here. I can live with the fact that a female is in charge, because ive met some great combat proven females since ive been in. BUT! when you are clearly no where near experienced with what you are supposed to be training the soldiers then you are just wasting a position. There is a difference, the NCO thats heard about the war but cant provide honest feed back to WHY we do certain training and can only reference an experience she had in an FTX and her worst day was having to pull 24 hours in the rain in the field and an NCO that has lived the experience, can relate the combat training soldiers have been conducting to actual experiences in combat and had a bad day when she had to tell the parents of a young soldier that they lost their child serving their country at a young age and many paygrades below her and they served the Army honorably, That is the difference. I want to follow a career path too, but I also understand that I would be doing a disservice to the Army and fellow soldiers to say "screw everyone else, im gonna worry about me me me and dodge the war and service to my country to get to where I want to be"...
Thats my complaint!

Very valid points. And I've seen the same thing that you referenced. I got back from deployment and PCS'd short-notice to a TRADOC assignment (where I spent less than a year, by the way...so I didn't hide out there). I get there to an instructing position and hear all this talk when I first get there from Booz-Allen-Hamilton contractors about how we're going to alter the instruction to reflect the realities downrange. That's great, but then many of the people writing the lesson plans either had never deployed at all or hadn't recently deployed (most were retirees from the military). So instead of bringing in people to do this who have recent deployment experience (say, the past couple of years or so), I'm going to rely on a retired COL who "heard from my friend how things are in Iraq" to write current, relevant instruction to prepare Soldiers for life in a war zone?

[MCGYVER]

LOL, that shit is funny right thar.